Your Partner for Online Growth
Assuming your website has a Content Management System or CMS you will be able to access the main text areas and upload new images. This can go a long way to keeping your content fresh both for your website visitor and the search engines that are checking your site to see what keywords are in your content in order to know if it is a good result for a search.
If you have a member of staff with the relevant knowledge and expertise and importantly the ability to optimise and resize images then allocate some time for them to update the site every week or month at the very least. If you do not have anyone on your staff with the appropriate skills then you can either get someone trained up to take on this task or outsource the job to an online marketing company such as ourselves.
The bottom line is that a website that is left to sit on a server untouched may be causing more harm than good to your business.
- It rapidly becomes stale, dated and boring in appearance.
- It does nothing to encourage repeat business.
- The site starts to slide down in the Search Engine rankings because of lack of new content and engagement.
There are a variety of cost effective ways to keep your site looking fresh and interesting and it usually only takes a little imagination and technical knowledge to achieve remarkable results which encourages repeat business and helps to maintain and improve your ranking in the Search Engines.
Ideas we recommend and can implement for websites we have designed include:
- Installation of RSS news feeds that automatically update and refresh themselves on an hourly basis - great for encouraging the Search Engine spiders to come back regularly. Try to identify a news feed that supplies you with content suitable for your business.
- Update a 'Latest News' page that links through to your home page and so gives your latest updates a prime position.
- Use of Industry relevant articles upgraded on a monthly basis.
- If you send a monthly newsletter then include a link to it on your website.
To find out more about how we can help you manage your website please contact us today Contact Us
Your website consists of many separate elements of software such as the core software (Joomla or WordPress for example) and also specific software components used to offer certain functionality such as enquiry forms, image galleries, maps, eCommerce software or event calendars for example.
Keeping the various component and platform softwares up to date with current releases is generally a task for your web developer. We would recommend that you take out a general maintenance contract with your developer to cover these ongoing background tasks and of course the all important backups. Many of us have experienced the feeling of losing a document that has not been saved - imagine if your website is hacked or fails for some other reason. You need to know that your investment is protected. Ensure that regular backups are scheduled and the frequent security and software upgrades and patches are being installed as they happen.
Our maintenance service ensures your system is maintained at the latest stable release, is secure against security threats and has recent backups in case disaster recovery is needed.
Read more about our Maintenance Service here.
The long-term goal for most businesses out there is all about attracting the right customer and successfully keeping that customer coming back for more.
So how do you encourage their on-going interest, and invite them to explore additional products or services?
Keeping touch with customers using email marketing, thank you cards and more.
Treating your staff well so they treat your customers well.
Showing that you care and remembering what they like and don’t like.
You build Loyalty by rewarding them for choosing you over your competitors.
That's where loyalty programmes come into play—and for email marketers, they fall into two general categories:
Granting VIP status at a certain spending level.
This type of programme rewards loyal customers with exclusive perks, special gifts, gift cards and pre-launch sneak-peeks to customers who spend a certain level in a calendar year. You can even target those who are near or on their way toward that VIP amount by reminding them of the benefits via auto responder emails.
Giving rewards at a certain spending level.
Rewarding those customers who continually purchase a product by sending email offers with coupons, for example a 5% discount. There might be a cheaper product on the market but the steady campaigns have kept them from investigating alternatives.
You can build your Loyalty Programme membership by placing information:
In prominent locations at your website
At point of sale in your business
In your welcome series for newsletters
In short, you build customer loyalty by treating people how they want to be treated. Show them why it's worth their while to stay. Earn the on-going loyalty of your best customers by revealing VIP bonuses with your email campaigns.
Responsive Website Design (RWD)
More and more people are browsing the web on their phones and mobile devices, so having a website that is designed specifically for mobile devices can be very beneficial. At Foran Enterprise we provide responsive web development services that ensure that your website is responsive for mobiles, and will be easy for your customers to use.
What is a Responsive Website?
Responsive Web Design (RWD) is an approach to web page creation that makes use of flexible layouts, flexible images and cascading style sheet media queries. The goal of responsive design is to create web pages that can detect website viewers screen size and orientation and change the layout accordingly to provide the best possible viewing experience.
Why do you need a Responsive Website?
With more and more website visitors viewing your website on mobile devices either on Tablets or Phones, your website needs to be adapted to their device. Your customer will have a much better experience if you have a responsive website and you will have a much happier customer.
With Responsive design the same web content is served to all devices, using CSS (which determines the layout of webpage) to change the appearance of the page. Rather than creating a separate mobile website which in practise means updating 2 separate sites and keeping then in sync is something which rarely happens.
Although all the website content can be displayed on smaller mobile devices you should plan out what is more important to someone on the move. It needs to have things like easy access to clickable phone numbers, maps and addresses if they need to find you. Also, they should be able to see products and services quickly.
Take a look at some Responsive Websites in our portfolio.
It can take time to build a responsive email marketing list of people who want to receive your newsletters and updates. Here are 5 important email marketing tips you can apply immediately whether you have a list of 50 or 5,000.
1. Personalise Your Message
Use the recipient's name in your message whenever possible. Something as simple as customising the email in this way can make your subscribers more likely to read through and act on your message.
2. Focus On One Message
It's fine to have a number of items in a newsletter type of email but if you are sending a non-newsletter type email with a particularly important call to action then resist the temptation to add extra padding. The more information the higher the chance the reader's eyes will glaze over and they'll reach for delete. Focus on one message and put it in the Subject Line and the first lines of the text to make it easier for those just skimming to absorb your message.
3. Include A Call To Action
Each email you send should clearly spell out what you want the recipient to do. Make links obvious. It's okay to be repetitive when it comes to the call to action - include it at the top of the message and again at the end.
4. Use A Professionally Designed Template
Use a email newsletter template that reflects your colours and brand of your business rather than sending out generic email. Using the same email template for your messages will help the reader recognise your company and foster a feeling of trust. Don't forget to test how your email looks across multiple email clients to make sure it looks how you want it to. You can see from your reports which email clients are being used by your subscribers. The use of iPhone, iPad and other mobile platforms to read email have increased hugely in recent months - make sure your template is Responsive ie: mobile compatible - if you are not sure ask us.
5. Check Your Reports
Is your list responsive? You should keep an eye on your open rates, click through rates, bounces and unsubscribes. Over time you will see what works for your list and what was poorly received. Asking your subscribers to update their profile with you by clicking the 'update preferences' gives them the chance to change the email address to which they receive your email. Perhaps you have been sending to info@theirbusiness and your email would be best going to sales@ or Tom@ ? Telling your subscribers that they can change the destination email can improve your open and response rates.
Don't be too quick to delete bounced addresses. An email can bounce for any number of reasons such as that the recipient's email inbox is full. It's best to wait and see if the address bounces more than once before deleting it from your list.